Technically, they were. Their good looks were just on the upper side of normal.
“She stands out. What if that makes you more visible?” Nine’s words and tone struck me. They weren’t dismissal like in Paris. It sounded a bit like worry, but that seemed out of place for them.
Then again, they were two down, seven to go. Worry for their lives, and maybe even each other, was bound to leak out a little.
“She can’t be that good of a lay,” One said.
Two days was all I could take.
“What is your fucking problem, you twatapatomus?” I snapped.
One’s eyes widened, and Five stopped what he was doing and scooted a little closer to me, his arm crawling across my back until his hand rested on my hip.
“Excuse me?”
“From the moment you laid eyes on me, your claws were out. Am I stepping on your turf? Is that it? The only woman in a man’s land, and when the attention is on something new, you can’t deal.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Oh fuck.
Her lips twitched, jaw clenching and unclenching, brow furrowing before the hard gaze I was used to softened.
“I’m the only woman, you’re right.” She nodded, then swung he arm around, gesturing to the others. “For years, it’s just been us. We pass each other every now and then, but in all the years I am the one constant woman in their lives. So, as much as I hate to admit it, I don’t like that you’ve encroached. They’re my boys, and I’m very protective of them.”
My brow scrunched. “I’m just a toy he’s going to discard.” I made a gun shooting gesture with my hand to my head. “No threat here. When I’m gone, you’ll still be here, right beside them.”
“You can’t fault us for having our hackles up around you,” Nine said from across the room, his gaze rising to meet mine. “Outside of Jason, it’s been years since someone besides our little group has known anything about us.”
Five tickled my side, and I snapped back to him. “You may not be a psycho killer like us, but you still unnerve us.”
I let out a little ha sound. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that. Six long ago said I unnerved him. Though I believed the reason differed from the one the Killing Corps presented.
Six had remained silent, not even moving when Five wrapped his arm around me. I stared at him, curious if he’d weigh in an opinion.
“You’ve been with him so long, I’ve been wondering if he’s going to be able to go through with it,” One said as she turned to Six, her eyebrow raised.
That got Six moving. He stood, grabbed his gun from the table, swung his arm up, aimed at my head, and fired. I heard the silenced snap, eyes wide, heart stopped, frozen and waiting for the pain, the feeling of blood.
But it didn’t come.
“Does that answer your question?”
Shaking, I turned to look behind me. In the wall there was a small, round hole.
Fuck.
None of them questioned him, returning to their tasks. Five took his rifle from my shaking hands and put it away. He gave me an apologetic smile.
Why was he the most human of them?
Frightened, thinking he was going to off me right then. Left scared in a huddled mass of shock. I moved back on the bed until my back hit the headboard, and pulled my legs up.
There was no empathy in them. No sympathy. And even with Five being nice, he was still the same. Just as dangerous and deadly. If he hadn’t taken a liking to me, I was certain I wouldn’t have gotten that small bit.
A little while later, Nine and One left on a food run and Five jumped in the shower, giving me the opportunity to talk to Six alone.
“Did you have to shoot at my head to prove your point?” I asked from my tucked-up place on the bed.
His head rose, eyes locked with mine. “Yes.”
“Why?”
He looked away, pausing, probably questioning if he should say anything. “They think having you is a weakness. I had to prove myself.”
“By shooting at me?”
That damn blank expression of his stared back at me. “I didn’t hit you.”
“That’s beside the point.”
“I will be hitting you, though.”
I froze, my voice lowering. “Yeah, I know, but don’t be an ass trying to show off to your buddies.”
He stood up and walked over to the bed. “Are you telling me what to do?”
“No, just saying if you want me to be cooperative, don’t shoot at me.”
He nodded the last few steps. Cupping my cheek, he ran his hand around to the back of my neck. What was a soft gesture became painful as his fingers fisted my hair and he tilted my head back.
I hissed, leaning toward his hand to relieve the pain.
“I’ll do what I want. And you will cooperate, or you’ll die sooner.”
Through my watering eyes I could see something in his own—emotion. Not anger, but something I couldn’t name, but was akin to pain. What type, I had no clue.